THE'sea ​​bream it is a fish that can give great satisfaction in the kitchen. Its fat and firm flesh can be cooked both in the oven and in the pan. Filleted, the sea bream fills your every dish with taste. Discover how to cook sea bream with the tips and tricks of Salt and pepper! But let's start with the basics …

How to recognize fresh fish

Buy fish at the fish market it is an act that can put us in difficulty if we do not have the tools to understand if what we are selling is really cool or not. Let's face it: if you don't fish for yourself, there is no certainty that the bream or sea bass you are buying is of the day. Of course, having a trusted fishmonger helps, but you're always the first judge of the freshness of the fish you're buying. So first use the nose and the eyes: smell the shop and the goods, you must feel thesmell of the sea. If the orange that reaches your nostrils reminds you of ammonia or something gone bad, change bench.

You will need eyes to see if the fish meat is firm and well colored. If the color it seems too vivid, be careful: additives may have been used to mask the state of decomposition of the food. In addition, always remember that you have thelabel to help you: here is the fishing date.

Examine the fish eyes: must be clear and bright. If the fish is old, they will be a little foggy. But in this case the meat will still be good. If instead the eye is vitreous, re-entering and tending to red, covered with a whitish patina, do not buy it at any price. The gills instead they must be of a beautiful intense red color. In the case of old fish they will be instead of a faded brick color. Outside the fish must have a metallic and clean color, brilliant. If it has a slimy appearance or is discolored or, worse, stained, it has exceeded the limit of freshness.

How to clean the seabream

If you don't know how to clean and fillet a sea bream and you prefer to have your fishmonger do it, do not buy already cleaned and cut slices or pulp, but ask that they be prepared on the spot starting from a whole fish. But let's learn together how to clean the bream. First of all it must be scaled: take a cutting board and cover it with a sheet of paper, so that the scales will not disperse on the kitchen surface. Holding the gilthead by the tail, slide the back of a knife along the entire length of the fish, up to the head. Then it's time to open the belly of the bream. Use a pair of kitchen scissors, insert the tips into the operculum and cut the meat towards the head, until it reaches the gills.

How to fillet the seabream

Here are some tips on how to fillet the fish. This operation will allow you to prepare the meat of the bream for recipes like that of fillets of sea bream in a crust with aromas.

While some fish such as turbot, sole and breed have 4 fillets, the bream has only 2 fillets. To extract both, place the fish on the targliere with the tail towards you and the abdomen facing down. After having scaled it, with the knife you engrave deeply along the bone, starting from the head.

Proceeding in the same direction, detach the fillet from the bone, then cut with scissors near the head and tail. This way you will have the first fillet. Repeat the operation on the other side. With tweezers it eliminates the small remaining spines. Then put the fillet with the skin on the cutting board, penetrate between it and the pulp and use the knife to separate them.

After cleaning the fish you can play around with a lot of recipes that include only the oven support and all the imagination you are capable of. If you have little time and want some suggestions, try the 10 best recipes for preparing Sale & Pepe baked sea bream.sea ​​bream in aromatic potato crust, thebaked sea bream with citrus fruits, thesea ​​bream with fennel and shallots or a great classic revisited: thelemon bream with salt crust.

The sea bream in foil is a second dish that combines lightness with flavor. This type of cooking has the advantage of enhancing the delicate taste of the meat of this fish, soft and white. There are many ways to prepare sea bream in foil, but we at Sale & Pepe recommend a quick and easy one. They will suffice very few ingredients: the sea bream and some smells – garlic, rosemary, sage – a little extra virgin olive oil and a lemon. Clean the fish and cover it with a few slices of lemon, a few sprigs of sage and a little rosemary. Close the foil and cook in the oven. It is a dish that is easy to prepare, but above all it appeals to young and old. You can embellish the cartoccio also with citrus fruits, potatoes, zucchini, onions and, why not, also with bacon and fennel.

Sea bream with salt

Among the recipes that use the oven support there is also that of thesea ​​bream with salt. This cooking technique works only for whole and non-sliced ​​fish. In fact, if the salt comes into contact with the meat, it becomes too dry or salty. The sea bream or the sea bass is the fish to which this type of cooking is best suited.

If you choose to use this technique, you must remember do not scale the fish: in this way you will prevent the salt from coming into contact with the meat. Furthermore – not just a benefit – at the end of the capture the salt will allow the skin to come off much more easily. Salt cooking requires that the fish is completely covered with large grains. In this way a hard crust will form which will isolate the fish, preserving its taste and humidity. Using this technique we will have to add only spices or aromas. Some variants include the possibility of mixing salt with whipped egg whites, to which you can mix aromatic herbs, citrus peel and even sugar. Try thesea ​​bream in salt with tarragon, pepper and oranges.

The salt bream is cooked in hot oven at 180 ° C. To calculate the cooking time, remember to take half an hour for each kilogram of fish. The delicious scent will tell you that the dish is ready.

Bream in the pan

The best way to prepare for pan-fried fish it is to use slices or single pieces of pulp, and not to cook the whole specimen. To prepare thebream in the pan we at Sale & Pepe suggest you take the fillets and cook them in the stew you prefer. Try for example i sea ​​bream fillets in zucchini stew, olives and tomato.

Grilled or grilled sea bream

Cook the fish on the grill it's simple: with the necessary precautions you'll get a really delicious dish. Between cooking strategies to prepare the grilled sea bream remember to keep the skin of the fish intact and not scaled, a fundamental rule to protect the pulp. If you have purchased slices for grilling, the leather should be "created", perhaps with a mix of salt and aromas and a brush of oil, or with a thick breading or flouring. You can also porchare the sea bream with a slice of bacon or lard.

Another key element to keep in mind is the distance of fish from the grill: place it only once it has become very hot and keep the bream at a distance of 10 cm, so as to ensure continuous, constant cooking without burning. Remember to brush the fish with marinade even during cooking, to prevent the meat from drying out. The cooking time will obviously depend on the size of the specimen.